1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an improved image scanning device. During scanning processes, the document can be placed upwardly that the user can verify and align the placement of the document. If the document is inclined, the user can therefore adjust the document to match the requirement of the image scanning device and also the need of a user.
2. Background Description
Due to the issue of environment protection, recently the traditional paper documents have been requested to be converted into electric file format for archiving and transmitting purpose and need. The ideal non-paper office and home environment can therefore be achieved. In this case, image scanning devices are broadly employed in our world.
Generally, there are two kinds of documents. They are reflective documents and transparent documents. The reflective document is directed to a document which is non-transparent, such as an ordinary paper, a picture or a print. The transparent document is directed to a document which is able to let the light passing through, such as a film, a slide and the kind.
A traditional image scanning device is shown in FIGS. 1A and 1B. The traditional image scanning device 1 is employed to scan an ordinary reflective document in order to get the digitalized image of the document. The image scanning device comprises a lower housing 11 and an upper cover 12. The lower housing 11 includes at least an axis 111, a scanning module 112, a document plate 113 and the driving module 114. A user is needed to place a document 13 above the document plate 113 for further scanning. Especially, the document 13 is required to face down to the lower housing 11. The user is therefore to close the cover on the document 13. Once the document 13 is placed by facing down, the user is able to start the scanner driver program to scan, or to press a switch button, implemented on the scanner (not shown in the figures) to drive the image scanning device 1 for conducting a scan. When the image scanning device 1 is instructed by the user""s action, the reflective document light source 1121 of the scanning module 112 is turned on to projecting a light to the document 13. The light is further reflected back to the scanning module 112 by the document 13. After the reflection provided by a reflection mirror 1123, the path of light is changed to pass lens 1124 and be formed on the image generating module 1122. generating module 1122. The image generating module 1122 therefore generates and output digitalized signals of the specific portion of the document.
Accordingly, the driving module 114 of the image scanning device 1 urges the scanning module 112 to the direction shown as an arrow legend, for completing whole scanning process.
In view of the above, the scanning page of the document is required to face down in order to complete the scan. In this case, it is inconvenient to the usage. For examples, if the document is larger than the document plate, the user has to adjust the position of the document many times to get a proper scanning result. This is for the reason that the user cannot see the pages of the document due to the document is facing down. Further, if the page of the document is inclined the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software may not be able to precisely recognize the words shown in the inclined scanned page image. Therefore, the user would like to avoid the inclination of the document during the scanning processes. In traditional scanning devices, due to the document facing down, the user is hard to adjust the document to be aligned.
Another known scanning type of the image scanning device is shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B. The scanning device is directed to scan a transparent document. The lower housing 11 is the same as the lower housing shown in FIG. 1B. The upper cover 12 of the FIGS. 1A and 1B has been modified to an upper housing 14. The upper housing includes a transparent document light source 141 and the light source driving module 142. The transparent document light source 141 provides a light passing through the document 13. Then following the method described in FIG. 1B, the light is projected into the image generating module 1122. The image signals of the document is generated out as a digital form. Once a portion of the image of the document is generated, the driving module 114 drives the scanning module 112 along the direction shown by the arrow legend. At the meantime, the light source driving module 142 urges the light source 141 synchronously in order to scan the next portion of the document.
Regarding to the upper housing 14 of the above, there is a known model shown in FIG. 2C. The upper housing 14 includes a light propagating plate 143 and a plate light 144. The light propagating plate 143 can distribute the light equally to the whole area. The plate light provides the light to the plate for the distribution of the light. When the user conduct a scanning procedure, the light distributed by the plate would pass the transparent document and be projected on the image generating module 1122 as mentioned in the above as FIG. 1B. The image signals of the document is generated out as a digital form. Once a portion of the image of the document is generated, the driving module 114 drives the scanning module 112 along the direction shown by the arrow legend. Especially, the scanning module 112 employs the light distributed by the plate. There is no need to drive the plate light.
In view of the above, since the document is placed facing down, even when the user is able to see the page of a transparent document, the content (such as the words, pictures or incline degree) is mirrored. It is still not easy to adjust the document at the user""s instinct. Moreover, it is hard to recognize the characters when the characters are mirrored by reversing left and right sides.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for scanning documents at users"" convenience, particularly by scanning a facing up document. The user is therefore able to align the document by directly viewing the pages for further scanning when the document faces up. Thus, the user is able to precisely adjust the placement and the inclination of the document.